'analogical thinking' can also refer to...

More Like This

Quick Reference

1. (analogical reasoning, metaphorical thinking) Generating ideas through making analogies between different phenomena.

2. According to Lévi-Strauss, the way that people make connections between the fundamental binary oppositions that they encounter in their everyday lives, perceiving metaphorical resemblances between paired categories (notably ‘similar differences’ connecting more concrete with more abstract oppositions). For example, raw is to cooked as nature is to culture: in structuralist shorthand, ‘raw : cooked : : nature : culture’. See also alignment. Oppositions like these are argued to be the basis for universal myths that cut across cultural distinctions and contexts.